by Mind Guest
in saving my neck, but I'd learned to be skeptical as well.
The warmth was entirely gone, so I put my feet out to the fur-cloth
floor and stood up, looking around again. The floor-fur was a deep
green, setting off the light salmon-colored wall panels, the panels
themselves being very plain. Each three-foot section of wall was
separated from the others by a panel line, and there must have been a
door there somewhere, but I couldn't spot it just then. I also saw no
window - which didn't mean there weren't any - but the far wall had
something square on it. I moved closer, trying to figure out what the
square might be. It was a light, slightly flickering gold in color, and
could have been anything from an observation screen or window to an
example of the art of tomorrow. I felt the urge to touch it, but pulled
back suddenly. I was old enough to know better than to touch strange,
unexplained objects; I'd had enough of waking up in odd places for a
while.
"I see you've taken it upon yourself to leave your bed," an annoyed
male voice said from behind me. "Are you sure you're feeling well
enough?"
The unexpectedness of the voice startled me, that and the fact it was
using an unknown language that I somehow understood perfectly. I turned
slowly and took the time to prepare myself for whatever might be
standing behind me, but the whole thing was a giant let-down. The only
thing standing behind me, well to the right, was a mild-looking little
man, round-cheeked and slightly pot-bellied, wearing a dark gold, onepiece
outfit that could have been a uniform. The outfit had patches
here and there, supporting the uniform theory, and the little man
wasn't looking at all pleased with me. The entire scene had a very
unreal quality to it, as if it would all turn out to be someone's idea
of a practical joke, but I dismissed that thought fast and smiled my
friendliest smile.
"How sweet of you to be concerned about me," I purred, moving a step or
two closer to him. "I'm feeling just fine now, and I'll bet I have you
to thank for it. I can see in your eyes that you're a very-special-sort of man.
His blue eyes didn't get any darker, but his chest swelled and his face
settled into a prissy look of satisfaction.
"I did very little more than see to your comfort, my dear," he said
smoothly. "And yet you may rest assured that had anything been
seriously wrong with you, I would have seen to it to the best of my
ability. We're rather isolated out here, but our medical facilities
can't be bettered anywhere."
I let my smile warm slightly, mainly to cover the fact that I was still
moving slowly toward him, and said, "I knew I was right about you, but
I'm just a little confused. You mentioned your medical facilities here,
but you didn't say where 'here' was. Can you tell me where I am?"
The satisfaction shifted to a frown, and the little man peered at me.
"This is an observation outpost of our Absari Confederacy," he answered
sharply. "The planet is called Tildor by its natives. Hadn't you any
idea you were in our neighborhood? The area happens to be proscribed."
I stopped where I was, about five feet from my visitor, determined not
to show how off balance I suddenly was. Not only hadn't I known that
the area was proscribed, I'd never even heard of proscribed areas, not
to mention something called the "Absari Confederacy." Things were back
to being unreal again, but there was one thing I knew for a rock-hard
fact: if my Federation had ever had contact with an Absari Confederacy,
I would have heard about it. My not having heard about them meant we'd
never contacted them, and I was back to wandering in the dark,
searching for a candle.
The little man was still watching me closely, so I decided to use some
of the confusion I felt to my own advantage.
"I must have gone farther astray than I thought," I breathed weakly,
putting my hand to my head. "I haven't the faintest idea of how I got
here."
"But, my dear girl, where were you going?" he asked, stepping closer to
me with professional concern. "And where did you start from? Surely no
one would have allowed someone with such meager knowledge of star
locations to travel about alone?"
We were no more than three feet apart, and that was just about right
for what I was going to have to do. He'd already asked three questions
I couldn't possibly answer, and I also couldn't afford to wait around
until those questions came from a more official source. I had to get
out of there as fast as possible, without leaving anyone behind who
could begin yelling before I was well out of reach.
I had stiffened the fingers of my right hand and was just lifting the
arm, when a section of the wall panel directly behind the little man
slid aside, showing a second male visitor. This one was a good deal
larger than the first, much taller and with much broader shoulders and
no pot-belly, wearing the same sort of one-piece uniform that the
little man wore, but his was a cobalt blue, with the patches in
different places. His dark eyes gave me a slow, frank stare of
appraisal, and he must have been pleased with what he saw-his rugged
face creased into a grin, and he stopped next to the little man, his
eyes still on me.
"How's our patient doing, Landren?" he asked in the sort of deep voice
one would expect. "Is she up to having visitors yet?"
The little man had glanced at the newcomer, but his attention was still
on me.
"She's still a bit shaky, Commander," he answered with what was
becoming a familiar frown. "But there seems to be something odd going
on here. You specifically told me she was alone, but why would such a helpless young woman be traveling alone? And another thinga133"
"You're perfectly right, Landren," the man addressed as Commander
interrupted. "I'm sure there are many things to discuss, but this isn't
the time for it. The young lady and I are going to have a chat now, and
I'd appreciate it if you would have someone bring a tray of edibles to
us. You and I can have a talk later."
I stood casually where I was, making sure my muscles were relaxed in
spite of the fact that the bigger man hadn't taken his dark eyes off me
and now stood between me and my erstwhile target. The little man was
annoyed all over again, not knowing how close he had come to the end of
every annoyance, but there seemed to be little he could do. he nodded
once, angrily, and drew himself up.
"Very well, Commander," he grudged to the larger man's back. "We'll
discuss the matter later. And I'll speak to one of your team members
about the rest of it."
He looked at me with what was probably supposed to have been a smile,
bowed stiffly, then turned and walked out. The man who now stood and
studied me with folded arms and sharp, intelligent eyes was nothing
like the first man and would not be as easy to handle, but he would
still have to be handled one way or another. I'd done a lot of bluffing
in my professional life, but never in a situa
tion where I didn't even
know what I was supposed to be bluffing about. The man's eyes kept
moving over me, as though he were looking for some sign of
embarrassment on my part due to the fact that he was dressed and I
wasn't, but he wasn't likely to find one. I'd been born and raised on
one of the only two nudist planets in the Federation, and standing
around raw had never bothered me. I looked away from the man, extended
my left arm for inspection, then rubbed at an invisible spot with a
small frown and a whole lot of concentration. I heard the sound of a
snort of amusement, then the big man shifted slightly where he stood.
"You're really very good, girl," he commented in that deep voice. "If I
didn't know better, I'd swear you were as innocent as you look."
The comment did nothing for my peace of mind, but I smiled at him with
polite interest.
"I don't understand, Commander," I said, putting just a touch of
confusion into my tone. "Am I supposed to be guilty of something?"
The question made the man smile again, then he laughed aloud.
"All right, I give up," he conceded with a chuckle. "I'd better stop
trying to shake that calm of yours before I push you into trying
something violent. I'll start off by telling you that I already know
you're not native to our Confederacy, so you can relax as far as that
goes. If you'll join me out on the terrace, we can both relax and
discuss the rest of it."
He stood not three feet away from me, grinning informally but in no way
off guard, and I didn't know what the hell to do. Insisting you know
something as a fact when all you do is suspect is such an old trick
that lots of people have forgotten about it. If he was telling the
truth, the fact that I wasn't in a jail cell was an encouraging sign,
but then I reminded myself that iron bars do not a prison make.
"I hate to seem dense, Commander, but I'm afraid I have very little
idea of what you're talking about," I drawled. "Suppose you add a few
details to what you've already said, and then maybe I'll be able to
hold up my end of the conversation."
He studied me again, then he nodded.
"Considering your position, I can't blame you for being cautious," he
conceded. "Maybe it would be better if we both knew what was
happening." he moved to his right, no more than five or six steps, then touched one of the salmon-colored wall panels. A thin, horizontal
section of the wall snapped out, knee height from the floor, and the
Commander sat himself down on it.
"All right, from the beginning," he said, leaning back against the wall
in his bench seat. "As soon as we looked at your ship, we knew you were
not from one of the member planets of the Confederacy. By 'we' I mean
my second in command and myself. he and I are the only ones who know
about you, which is why Landren was so confused."
He stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles, frowning slightly in
concentration. "The Absari Confederacy has known about your Federation
for some twenty standard years now, but the knowledge hasn't been
spread about. One of our scout ships netted a primitive rocket,
calculated the direction from which it had come, then backtracked on
it. When they began picking up communicator signals, they turned back
and reported to Absar Central, and we've been tip-toeing around the
edges of your volume of space ever since. We're nearly to the point of
introducing ourselves, but things like that take time." His eyes came
back to me, and the grin was starting again. "If I were going to
execute you as an undesirable alien, it would have been done by now, so
how about calling a truce and having something to eat with me? I'll
feel like a fool if I have to call a bodyguard before I can relax with
you in arm's reach."
This time I studied him and his grin, weighing my options. I could
trust him and take my chances or wipe him and take my chances, but
either way it would be a risk. The way he moved and held himself said a
lot about his ability, and the lack of fat on his well-muscled body
said he had very little need of a bodyguard. I would have backed my own
ability against his no matter what he knew, but even if I did best him
and then managed to find my way to a ship without running afoul of
anyone else, which way did I point the ship? Which quadrant had I come
in from? I took a strand of my hair to chew on, and the Commander's
grin widened. -
"You look as though you're having trouble making up your mind," he
observed, moving his back away from the wall to lean one elbow on a
broad thigh. "Suppose I add this as support for being reasonable: you
must have a lot of questions you'd like answered, and I'll be glad to
answer them - as well as fill you in on what you said when I questioned
you. You were unconscious at the time, so you're hardly likely to
remember it by yourself."
I continued to stare at him for a second, then smiled, as did he. he
was trying to bribe me with my own curiosity, and that made me feel
better about him. A man who understands bribery can't be all bad.
"All right, Commander, you've got me," I laughed, shaking my head at
him. "Curiosity always has been my fatal flaw, and I've got a question
that's been bothering me since that other man first opened his mouth. I
feel as though I'm speaking my own language, but what I'm speaking and
hearing isn't my own language. I mean, I'm pretty sure it isn't my own
language, even though I'm thinking in it, too. Does that make any
sense, or do I have a lump on the head to account for it?"
"You're perfectly all right," he chuckled, getting to his feet and
hiding the seat. "You had to have a language lesson before I could
question you, and there was no reason to take it back again once you
had it."
I could have spent a lot of time thinking about their methods of
teaching languages to people who were unconscious, but the Commander
had moved another two feet to his right and had put his hand on the
wall again. A panel popped open, revealing a footed jumpsuit, and he pulled it out then closed the panel again. The jumpsuit looked like the
uniform he was wearing - aside from being dark green in color and
having no patches - and it also looked like it might fit me.
"You'd better put this on," he said, tossing me the suit with what
looked like regret on his face. "We usually wear clothing of some sort
around here, and there's no sense in getting people curious."
As soon as I had the suit, he turned away from me and walked over to
that shimmering golden square on the wall. he brushed his fingers along
the upper right side of it, and I blinked as it began lengthening and
widening as though it were made of syngel. The former square kept
changing until it was about seven feet high and four feet wide, then he
seemed to be satisfied. It still shimmered goldenly, but now it was a
doorway, showing a hazy view of green skies and yellow sunshine above a
wide, carved wood balcony. The big man took time out from staring
through the doorway to glance at me, and I realized I'd jus
t been
standing there holding the suit in my hand, so I began getting into it.
It didn't take more than a minute, which made the timing just right.
"Ah-here's the food," the big man observed, causing me to look around.
The panel door had slid aside again, and this time it was a really
oversized male who entered pushing a cart. he was bigger and wider -
and younger - than the Commander, with brown hair and eyes and a broad,
square face, and he wore the same uniform outfit, only in a deep red.
he pushed the cart - which had no wheels but some sort of runners -
through the golden haze and out onto the terrace, then came back
through the golden doorway without it. he nodded to Commander whoever,
sent a wink in my direction, then left again without a word. When the
panel had slid closed behind his broad back, I looked over toward the
Commander again and commented, "Now I know why that doorway is so high.
I'm glad to see he's friendly."
"That's Leandor, head of my special section," the Commander supplied,
looking toward the now empty doorway. "He must have heard about our
visitor and decided to get a look at her to break up the boredom.
Waiting on tables isn't what he was trained for."
"How about discussing what he was trained for," I suggested with a
bright smile. "As an easy lead-in to all those questions you're going
to answer for me."
"You sound as though you think I won't be answering any questions," he
said with an injured air of innocence. "You do have my word, you know,
and I consider my word a solemn oath. Let's take a look and see what
Leandor brought."
He headed out through the golden haze with a half-swallowed grin on his
face, leaving me no option but to ignore my annoyance and follow him.
It was pretty obvious he intended running our interview to suit
himself, and it didn't yet suit him to get down to cases.
As I passed through the golden haze, I felt a light tingling sensation,
the same sort of tingling you feel when moving through a light grade
force shield. Once I was through it, I noticed immediately that the
quality of the air was different. Inside the air was fresh and clean,
but fresh and clean in the way of having been laundered through a
recirculator; outside was the fresh and clean of true outdoors, with a
lot of that just-born feeling of recent rain. I took a deep, sweet